Heather Buck and Jason Bruffy in Proserpina, photo by William Struhs

Even after going to the Spoleto Festival for 20 years now, I kind of freak out about everything I’ve jammed into my schedule -- usually 15 performances in five days -- and how little I really know about most of it. The first day is nuts, but the second day I feel like I’ve been there for a week, and by that time I’ve seen something really good or at least interesting.

But first, some news.

The festival announced May 31 that Emmanuel Villaume, director of orchestral and opera music for 10 years, will step down at the end of this festival. He’s not as active at this year’s festival and has recently taken on another conducting post at the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava in addition to his job as music director with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

A native of France, Villaume first came to the Spoleto Festival in 1990 to conduct The Marriage of Figaro. It was his first visit to the United States and in his cast was then-unknown Renee Fleming. Along with his various jobs, Villaume is an in-demand guest conductor for orchestras and opera companies (including the Metropolitan Opera) around the world.

For some reason, I felt this might be coming. This was the first time in years I didn’t do advance interviews with Villaume, and I missed talking to him.  I just like the guy -- he’s charming, accessible, honest and a hell of a conductor. He’ll be hard to replace.

New host for chamber music          

I started this festival with a chamber music concert anchored by the St. Lawrence String Quartet and its first violinist Geoff Nuttall, who is the new director of the popular and excellent series. Good concert of course with two works by Schuman, but one of the best things was seeing Nuttall in the host role. Nuttall has been sidekick to the now-retired and much-beloved Charles Wadsworth and over the years has talked a bit from the stage. He seemed like a natural for the role and he is.

For the second concert, St. Lawrence trotted out its fav -- Haydn.

“We’re slightly evangelical about him,” Nuttall says. “Everyone gives Beethoven all the credit, but Hayden really did it first.”

Clarinetist Todd Palmer then came out to play Contrasts, which Bela Bartok wrote for Benny Goodman in 1939. That was followed by a little Bach followed by Yes. Yes, Yes as in the progressive-rock group of the ‘70s. Pianist Stephen Prutsman can play anything and he did his own complex arrangement of the 1974 Yes song “Soundchaser.”

Midway through a fog machine was turned on. Yes, it’s a new day at the chamber music series.

New music from Germany

In preparation for seeing the Wolfgang Rihm opera Proserpina, making its Western Hemisphere premiere at the festival, it made sense to attend a concert of Rihm’s music. The Music in Time Series served up a dramatic, intense and very loud selection from Rihm’s Chiffre Cycle. In introducing the concert John Kennedy, Music in Time director, said some of us would leave feeling exhilarated and some feeling beaten up. How about beaten up and exhilarated?

For Proserpina, Kennedy was also conducting and just as excellently nearly the same chamber orchestra that played the earlier Rihm concert. Proserpina was a Roman Goddess abducted by Pluto and taken to the underworld. (They’re better-known in their Greek guises of Persephone and Hades.) In this opera, she's trying to come to terms with being stuck in this dark, dank place and figure out why her father (Jupiter) has let this happen.

The music is complex, but accessible with some unusual instrumentation (heavy on percussion and with a dose of the contrabassoon and bass clarinet) and singer Heather Buck in the title role is superb.

The opera poses one singular challenge: it has only one character.

For most of this production, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll in his first opera outing, Buck is the only person on stage. (Jason Bruffy in the silent role of Pluto lurks around the stage throughout.)

The set is based loosely on one of Charleston’s decrepit mansion -- all peeling wallpaper, exposed lath and weeds sprouting through the floor -- although the mood is set as much by the lighting as the set.

For only one person, Buck really owns the stage as well as the space beyond it. At one point she appears to be conducting the orchestra which is in full view to the left of the stage in Memminger Auditorium.

The action on the stage picks up somewhat when the 15-members chorus shows up although with mixed results. They’re all young women dressed in fairly ugly outfits from the 1970s accentuated by heavy blue eye shadow. They look a lot like the prom crowd from the movie Carrie. Their glassy-eyed presence is meant to add a bit of levity, but there’s nothing particularly light about Perserpina, and the gag really doesn’t work well.

Still, it isn’t enough to sink an opera with such incredible music.

Additional performances are June 4 and 9.

Polish pianist burns through concert      

Although the Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer is part of the festival jazz series, he could have just as easily fit into the Music in Time contemporary music series. “Intense” barely begins to describe his playing. He came in, sat down at the piano and cut a mad swath through everything from Chopin to Duke Ellington to Miles Davis and some of his Polish colleagues. Quite often, he helped the piano along by muting strings with a towel and sliding water glasses around inside the instrument. While playing his face was hidden from every angle by his long blonde hair, but at the end of each piece he’d look up nod to the audience and smile and then get right back to it.

At the end, he modestly acknowledged the piano.

If you like edgy piano music and playing, Mozdzer has four more concerts June 1 and 3.

A respectful parody

The biggest pleasant surprise for me came by way of something I hadn’t even planned to attend: Les Trockadero de Monte Carlo. This is a group of male dancers most dressed in tutus and pointe shoes doing a satiric take on classical ballet and modern dance.

The group started with a take off on Swan Lake that was campy and silly, but how often do you get to see a Queen of the Swans with black chest hair and a beak like a swan?

The group also took a swipe at modern dance (Merce Cunningham specifically) with three dancers in silly outfit and wigs performing to music performed by two black-garbed musicians who played everything from a lasso to paper bags and kazoos. At the start this just looked like a cheap shot at modern dance and its pretentious indulgences and some of the audience happily lapped up the surface satire. But it was also clear that there’s something more to this -- it’s good. Good, interesting dance and music, even with the inside jokes.

Things just got more serious and more funny with Go for Barocco, a take off on George Balanchine with music by Bach. These men -- some of whom are quite large -- showed what great dancers they are while also occasionally falling down or breaking into a trot.

The Trocks are having fun, but doing so with love, respect and most of all, talent.

The festival continues through June 13. For more information, go to www.spoletousa.org.